Singapore Attracts Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Investment

Pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical manufacturing and research and development represent an important part of Singapore's economic base. Several major projects were announced in 2007 as Singapore, along with Ireland and Puerto Rico, compete for investment in the life sciences.

Pharmaceutical manufacturing output

The biomedical sciences (BMS) sector in Singapore is a growing part of the country's economy and is the target of government initiatives to attract investment. "Today, Singapore's BMS industry contributes to slightly over 6% of Singapore's gross domestic product," says Keat-Chuan Yeoh, executive director of the Biomedical Science Board at the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), the government agency charged with business development. "In 2006, the BMS industry did extremely well. The manufacturing output grew strongly to S$23 billion (US $16 billion), an unprecedented 30% increase over 2005. The manufacturing output has grown almost fourfold from the year 2000, when we launched the BMS initiative."

In breaking down the BMS sector in 2006, of the total S$23 billion (US $16 billion) in manufacturing output, nearly S$21 billion (US$14.6 billion) was for pharmaceuticals and the balance was for medical technology. Manufacturing data for 2007 is scheduled for release in early 2008.

The BMS initiative was launched in 2000 to establish this sector as the fourth part of Singapore's industry cluster, alongside electronics, chemicals, and engineering, explains Yeoh. "This development was a natural extension of Singapore's capabilities in chemicals and electronics manufacturing," he says.

Key projects in 2007

In 2007, several major projects were announced according to the Singapore EDB in pharmaceutical manufacturing and R&D. These included:

A US$700-million cell-culture facility to be built by Novartis (Basel, Switzerland) that will support clinical and commercial production of new biopharmaceuticals, primarily monoclonal antibodies, scheduled for operation in 2012

Lonza's (Basel, Switzerland) breaking ground for its second commercial-scale mammalian cell-culture manufacturing plant in Singapore, representing an investment of US$350-million depending upon uptake.

Genentech's (South San Francisco, CA) decision to set up Singapore's first microbial-based biopharmaceutical manufacturing facility, representing an investment of approximately US$140 million

Eli Lilly's (Indianapolis, IN) US$150-million expansion in drug-discovery for the new Lilly-Singapore Center for Drug Discovery

GlaxoSmithKline's (London) investment of S$20 million (US$14 million) in its Center for Research in Cognitive and Neurodegenerative Disorders for the construction of two medicinal chemistry laboratories